


First and Last

by macabre



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Instability, post TDKR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:43:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Blake looses himself in the Batsuit; there never was a Batman before him. He is Batman. Nothing and no one came before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First and Last

**Author's Note:**

> Gratuitous and unabashed references within. Also, I'm ignoring the Nightwing plot in favor that Blake actually takes up the same Bat suit.

There’s something to slipping into another man’s identity, even if that man is dead and gone and still a legend. If John Blake thought he could become Batman by taking up the armor, he was wrong. He’s not the same specimen – doesn’t have the physicality, nor the mentality that Bruce Wayne had. In some horrible way, Wayne had been groomed and trained for his role since early childhood, starting the night his parents died.

Blake’s parents died one-by-one, and his slip was gradual. He went through the stages and the motions, but he never did anything with it. He built a suitable face and eventually a suitable career, but he never had the right push somehow. Wayne is giving him the push now, but it may be too late. 

Training his body aside, Blake doesn’t like the dark. Anything can and has happened in the dark. Blake got left behind in the dark, that’s why he wanted to be a cop and balance justice somehow. Blake doesn’t want anyone else to get left behind, especially scared little boys. 

His neighbors in the dark mock him; they screech and cry every time he enters or exits the cave. They don’t like being disturbed, and he doesn’t know how to get rid of them, or if he would. They are his constant reminders of who and what he’s supposed to be. 

Supposed to be. Blake wasn’t supposed to be anything. The orphanage in part made sure of that, and when he graduated from the academy he made a trip back to show them exactly what he’d done. It’s not enough now. 

When he crawls back to the falls, bruised and busted wide open, he has no one to help him. Wayne had his butler at least; all he has are their cries, reminding him that he is the trespasser, even in costume. He can’t fool anyone once he’s even physically slipped into Wayne’s skin, not the bats nor the criminals recognize him properly. 

Blake doesn’t remember all of the Joker’s brief reign, but it lives in Gotham in memories of Harvey Dent Day and other days and the darkest nights. The man had scars and a mask, and even though he isn’t wearing a purple linen suit, Blake can’t help but see more similarities between the craziest of them and people like him and Wayne. 

He was crazy to think he could be Batman. Wayne was crazier. The craziest, probably. Blake’s wounds get so infected he’s incapacitated for several weeks with a fever so strong he can’t even hear the bats through the fog in his head. He knows he’s saved when he hears the echoes again. The bells, the bells, the bells. 

After that, he tries to embrace the bats. He doesn’t keep the cave as well lit as he’d like, and they stay quieter. When he sleeps, he hears echoes ringing in his head. It’s the constant chatter of his life, but at least he has someone to talk to besides criminals. 

Gordon is the closest thing he has to a companion, but he knows that the commissioner will figure him out if he gets too close, and for now, he’s going to keep this to himself, for both their safety. It may be the last noble thing he does.

Blake kills another man shortly after he begins his watch; that makes four. It’s a complete accident – Batman strung him up a little too tight, and the guy, panicked as he was, strangled himself before Batman could get back to him after dealing with his friends. It doesn’t change a thing, and he never will forget the sight of the man creaking back and forth just so gently in the wind.

It’s not the last time he kills, either. Batman did a good job of sparring even the wickedest before, but now he can’t. He goes either too gentle or too hard, and someone always pays the price. 

The next time he’s too hurt to move he’s in the sewers again, and he stays there for days. Here there are just rats, no bats, and he doesn’t much care for them. They cry too, but they have teeth to interrupt and eyes that glow differently in the dark. He misses the bells, bells, bells. 

Batman still doesn’t like the dark. He’s all alone in the dark. In the dark there are visitors, never welcome, who poke and bite at him. He thinks of the boys’ home, the dark closets and the hideaways, and worse yet, the foster homes with the picket fences that supposedly broadcast their normality and love. Blake never saw any of it. 

He doesn’t see it now either; Batman doesn’t see the good, only the bad, the worst things. He separates a mother from her child because she can’t stop throwing boiling water at the girl, only eight-years-old and too young to have permanent scars from burns. She has been blessed, the mother cries. She is chosen, as if the water is holy water, but it’s not. It’s just boiling water.

At home he considers a small pot of boiling water. How much it might take to warm his entire body. Batman is cold because he has to be. He is chosen too.

The bats welcome him home and he doesn’t mind it anymore. Within their voices he can make out the pitches and tones of a choir. He sleeps in his suit, their skin, and feels like one of them finally. It’s already hard to remember what being like the man with the overcoat on 43rd is like, or the woman doing her grocery shopping by park. He watches others and hears what they say. It’s sometimes about him, but never for him. 

The cape makes for a horrible blanket. It gets colder. 

Everyone knows he’s back, of course. They stop looking at the statue in City Hall and start watching the sky. Batman can’t avoid the police any longer, but they’re not hunting him any longer. Mostly, they stay out of his way. Give him a wide berth. All expect Gordon. Gordon hovers, never approaching, but often around. He’s not sure if it’s meant as comfort. He wouldn’t know how to talk to the man anyway.

He’s got his leathery friends now. They make his mask and drive his will. 

It’s strange being caught out in light too long; he doesn’t like to leave the cave, doesn’t like to change from his suitskin to blend in with the others. He’s not like them. He’s Batman.

The Batman works alone. He eliminates criminals from the equation of Gotham, be it one way or another. He takes some hits, he gives out more. He has only one kind of company – the kind that comes out at night. He hasn’t seen daylight for a long time now. No one asks for the Bat during the day. He is needed only at night. 

Then the call comes one morning after he’s just returned home. The beacon on the machine is flashing. Something is wrong. He doesn’t know what, and in the daylight he is blinded. And tired. Something is wrong. And it’s just not on the streets. Something is wrong with him too.

 

 

He doesn’t recognize Jonathon Crane, even with the infamous mask. Doesn’t realize what he has must be fear toxin, and once he gets it in his lungs, he can’t get it out. His body has been slow for days, now it’s unmovable. Batman sees rotting walls and broken china with worms on the floor. 

There’s a dancing darkness at the corner of his eyes. He swats at it miserably, not doing any kind of damage until he shoots a grappling hook through it. Then it howls horribly, worse than the bats. Batman is too distracted by the familiarity of the room. It must be as black as the crawling thing next to him. He starts a fire and jumps through a window, an unfortunate mistake because he doesn’t remember this room being so high.

The noises that come for him are almost like his friends at home, except he knows they’re not quite right. Red and blue lights, then he remembers he should run. 

 

 

“John, son, can you hear me?” A man. “You’re going to be alright. Just rest.”

Things are not right. Something is talking to him. He only half hears. He wants every word to himself.

 

 

“It’s my fault.” A man. A different man. Familiar. “It’s not something you can do alone.” 

Do what? But then he remembers. He is Batman. He does everything alone.

 

 

“John. What do you need?” Bruce asks. It’s always Bruce now. Gordon found him and resurrected him from his suit before anyone could see him on the crime scene, but Gordon has left him again. Working. He at least has a force to work with.

John misses him. He shakes his head whenever Bruce asks these questions. He doesn’t know what he can ask for. He has everything he supposedly needs – recovery. In a haven. Some safe house Bruce has, just some miles from the cave. They’ve been there for a couple of weeks now, but John misses the dark spaces and the shrill cries. He’s no longer made for light rooms with blanketed beds. 

Apparently John never recovered from his fever like he thought. His body was practically septic by the time Crane got to him with whatever drug he’s been making. Was making. Crane’s dead now. They buried him somewhere with a hole in his gut and burns disguising his entire body. That makes – but John’s lost count already. 

The IV in his arm itches. And burns. He’s had a needle under his skin for a long time now, supposedly hydrating him, but John knows by now that there’s still hefty painkillers and even sedation. At night, it’s like something calls for John, inhuman as it is, and he can’t refuse it or rest. Bruce jokes it’s like watching Jekyll and Hyde, his passive daytime demeanor and then the thing that comes out after sunset to hunt.

Bruce acts like he can’t relate, but John needs him to relate. He’s not sure what he’s doing if Bruce can’t remember what it’s like. 

“You rest now. There’s nothing pressing in Gotham to be taken care of right now,” Bruce comments over the newspapers. He’s tracking stories and leads, for sure, and if not for his constant presence at his side, Blake would think he’s donning the mask again for him.

“Where’d you go?” John asks. He doesn’t want to make it sound like an accusation, but Bruce goes very still. 

“I thought there was a life out there for me.”

John smiles. “And?”

“And it wasn’t what I thought it would be.” Bruce smiles at him wistfully, leaning over to change his bandages on his injured side where the fire got him the worst. 

John is doped up on antibiotics and painkillers; he is putty in Bruce’s hands, and for once, he’s happy to be defenseless. It feels too good to be touched after so long of being not touched, not spoken to, regarded in the news only. He has no secrets from Bruce. He trusts Bruce to care for him knowing everything he does. He had forgotten that Batman was like a god to him once, all knowing. All powerful. Bruce is still much like that to him.

From this proximity though, Bruce’s face just a short few inches from his, he can see the sunspots on his nose. The wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. The long and short hairs on his chin. The grey hairs on his head. John smiles at them and wishes he could touch. 

“I almost forgot,” he says when Bruce is still close. He can tell by the way the other man blinks that his breath must be hitting his face a little too harshly, but he doesn’t remove himself. 

“Forgot what?” Bruce asks. He sounds like he knows the answer.

“That you were Batman. That there was ever a Batman before me.” John turns his head away. The walls in this house are hideously clean and white. It makes him feel nervous.

A hand sneaks under his chin and pulls his face back around. John frowns, then smiles. More touching. Touching is good. Touching is human. He missed being human. 

“You’re not Batman. You’re John Blake.” Bruce smiles at him, his fingers lingering awhile longer. Then he’s gone to dispose of the old bandages. John is cold again, so he curls miserably onto his side.

Night is coming.

 

 

When he wakes in the night, his head is muddled. It takes him awhile to remember that he has been drugged to sleep, but even with that knowledge in the forefront of his mind he can’t help the kaleidoscope of thoughts skittering across his memory like the blasted rats from the sewers. The decaying wallpaper in Crane’s laboratory. The hideous wallpaper in his pristine foster homes. And this new, clean wall too. Mocking him, all of it. 

He thinks about the men he killed. The nights he didn’t kill anyone but put the bad ones behind bars. Those were the nights he wishes he could have celebrated, but never did. There was a moment down in the sewer when the illness first held him and he thought but couldn’t recall his real name. 

John Blake is fake. Just as fake as Batman. It’s John Blake who could be anyone, and why he is Batman is both tragically stupid and poetic. He almost hates Bruce for what he’s done to him. If only Blake could hate the one person who has given him the most.

There’s fresh blood crawling through the bandages on his side. When he holds up his hand, he barely makes out the rough underscore of his nails. There’s dirt and white fluff under them, and yes – some faint blood too. He’s been clawing at his wounds then, the walls too it looks like, while he sleeps. It’s hard to remember – hard to think – if he’s noticed his hands in the mornings. Has he done this before? Is that why Bruce is so adamant about checking his dressings every day?

“You’re awake,” Bruce whispers. He puts a hand on John’s forehead. 

“Have I done this before?” He places his hand on top of Bruce’s, his fingertips right in the center of his hand where he can see them.

“Yes.” Bruce stands above him, static as the past. John is sure this conversation is over and that he’ll get some more drugs and a pat on the head tomorrow, so he turns onto his side again, burns be damned. The pain anchors him and frees him from the pull of sleep for a moment longer. He wants to run and jump and be the night. He misses his real skin, the tough skin. 

Then hands scoop him up, sheets and all, and effortlessly hold him up while Bruce maneuvers himself into the bed, John then half on top of him. 

“You can ask for this, you know.” He pulls his fingers through John’s hair like the mother he imagines he had. He wants to cry thinking about how Bruce has meant more to him than his mother. 

“This was never something you could have done alone. I had years of training, a lot of which was with others. Both criminals and good men. But I should have never left you the way I did. I’m sorry.”

Blake is silent for a while. Then, “Have we done this before too?”

Bruce smiles; it isn’t particularly warm, but hallow and empty, like the cave John misses. “Yes.”

“I don’t remember.” John rubs at his forehead, digging his fingers in because he has no nails. Bruce takes his hand away, holds it in his by their side. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. John’s other hand is pinned underneath Bruce, which leaves one of the deadman’s hands free to continue soothing John’s skin.

“Because I’m Batman.” John smiles; his split lip splits further. He laughs. “I’m Batman.”

There are fingers covering his lips and a voice shushing in his ear. He can’t stop laughing. He is the night, and the dark, and the bats. He waited. It’s his. But he’s suffocating under something, and he won’t let it be taken from him, so he bites down. 

Bruce shakes his hand away from his face. John had forgotten there was someone else there. John had forgotten Bruce entirely, even when lying in his arms. 

“I’m sorry.” John’s mad. And he knows it. They both know it. Maybe it’s the fever. It went to his head. 

“Don’t be.” Bruce grips him harder, but lets John flip himself onto his stomach so he can squeeze back. Now he wants to suffocate. Let Bruce end it. It’d be easy for him. 

“Will you stay?”

“Yes.”

“Because I can’t be Batman.” He doesn’t want to kill more people by accident. He’s not sure what he wants anymore – except maybe the dark. Maybe he’s adopted it more than he thinks. He once craved the day; now he ignores its existence. 

“You’re not Batman; you’re John.” Bruce squeezes him where the bruises sit. All John wants to hear is that he is Bruce’s. If he can’t be Batman, he will be Batman’s. 

Bruce doesn’t say it, but John can feel it in the way he crushes him, soul and all.


End file.
